1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image drawing apparatus for changing data entered from an application program or the like into a form suitable for processing in an output device such as a printer, an image drawing method and a memory medium therefor.
2. Related Background Art
In the PDL (page description language), in case of drawing and printing data such as lines or characters, it is necessary to switch the drawing attributes, such as color or line width in case of a line, or font or size in case of a character, in order to output the drawn data. Conventionally the output data of the drawn image have been generated by switching such drawing attributes in the order of input of the requests for drawing.
However, in such conventional method of generating the drawn output data in the order of input of the requests for drawing, the switching of the drawing attributes such as color, line width, font etc. becomes frequent, thus leading to a lowered hit rate of the font cache in the printer and a lowered throughput of printing, also leading to an increase in the amount of output data resulting from the frequent switching of such drawing attributes, thereby eventually resulting in a loss in the resolving power and in the image quality and in a defective printing.
In consideration of the foregoing, the object of the present invention is to reduce the frequency of switching of the drawing attributes.
The above-mentioned object can be attained, according to the present invention, by analyzing the input data, then changing the order of drawing of the input data in such a manner that the result of drawing remains same as in the case of drawing the input data in the order of input and that the switching of the drawing attributes does not increase, and outputting the data of thus changed drawing order to the output device.